The Latest: Trump prepares for meeting with Putin – Washington Post

By Associated Press,

HAMBURG, Germany — The Latest on President Donald Trump’s second official visit to Europe (all times local):

1 a.m.

President Donald Trump refuses to say if he will raise the issue of Moscow’s meddling in the U.S. presidential election when he goes behind closed doors Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Still, he told a crowd of thousands Thursday in downtown Warsaw that he is urging Russia “to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes, including Syria and Iran.”

Trump is also calling on Russia “to join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself.”

Trump then flew to Hamburg, Germany, where more than 100,000 protesters were expected to flood the city to stage massive protests against the Group of 20 summit.

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10:25 p.m.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is adding her name to the list of high-ranking Democrats who are demanding that President Donald Trump confront Russian leader Vladimir Putin over Moscow’s election meddling.

Pelosi says in a statement Thursday that Trump needs to tell Putin the United States will not tolerate any further interference in U.S. campaigns.

Pelosi’s statement came after Trump spoke in Warsaw, Poland, a day ahead of his first face-to-face meeting with Putin. Trump says Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election, but has repeated his assertion that “other countries” may have done the same.

Top Senate Democrats told Trump in a letter that it would be “severe dereliction” of his presidential duty if he failed to confront Putin over Moscow’s meddling.

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7:10 p.m.

The German government says Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Donald Trump have discussed issues including North Korea, the situation in the Middle East and the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

A brief government statement gave no further details of Thursday’s discussion, which lasted a little over an hour, other than to say they discussed “some issues on the G-20 agenda.” It said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel also participated.

Merkel and Trump have met on three previous occasions. Merkel has visited the White House, and the two also participated in May in a NATO summit and the Group of Seven summit in Italy.

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7 p.m.

President Donald Trump appears to still hold out hope that China can help to resolve tensions with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

Trump had hoped that Chinese President Xi Jinping would help to restrain North Korea after meeting with him in April. But North Korea raised the stakes by test-launching its first intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4. The launch raised the prospect of the United States one day possibly coming under attack after trying to stifle North Korea’s nuclear ambitions for several years. Trump raised questions about China’s commitment afterward by noting its expanded trade relationship with North Korea.

But Trump suggested he hasn’t given up on Xi before having dinner with South Korean President Moon Jae-In and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday.

“Never give up,” Trump told reporters without elaborating.

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6:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump is meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as part of an annual summit of industrial nations in Hamburg, Germany.

The pair shook hands and spoke briefly while looking directly at each other. They then left for closed-door discussions.

Asked what subjects they would address, Trump declined to say.

Merkel has been open about her disappointment with Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from an international climate agreement. She told the German parliament “we cannot expect easy talks in Hamburg” on climate issues

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5:45 p.m.

Former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev says Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin need to establish a wide-ranging agenda in their meeting on Friday.

In comments to state news agency RIA-Novosti on Thursday, Gorbachev said the meeting of the Russian and American presidents in Hamburg, Germany, should emulate the 1986 Reykjavik summit of Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan that substantially advanced US-Soviet relations.

“First of all, it’s good that this meeting will finally take place, but it’s a pity that this is happening only now — and so far our countries do not have a joint constructive agenda, it takes a lot of time to catch up,” Gorbachev was quoted as saying.

“We now need an impulse from the leaders, as happened in Reykjavik in 1986’” he said. “We must put everything on the negotiating table and establish a mechanism for interaction, not for any single items, even important, but for all problems.”

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5:10 p.m.

Senior Senate Democrats say Donald Trump will be committing a “severe dereliction” of his presidential duties if he fails to confront Russian leader Vladimir Putin about Moscow’s meddling in U.S. elections.

In a letter sent to Trump a day ahead of his meeting with Putin, the lawmakers say it’s critical that Trump set the agenda and make clear that Russia’s interference in American democracy will not be tolerated.

The letter is signed by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York; Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate; and the top Democrats on the Intelligence, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations committees.

The Democrats say Trump has to deliver an explicit message to Putin.

They say, “The upcoming elections cannot be a playground for President Putin.”

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4:35 p.m.

A top member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is calling for President Donald Trump to “have the courage” to address election meddling when he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-CA, said in a statement Thursday that Trump’s claims that “nobody really knows” who hacked the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign officials may “directly undermine U.S. interests.”

Schiff says, “This is not putting America first, but continuing to propagate his own personal fiction at the country’s expense.”

Trump said in Poland on Thursday that he believes Russia meddling in the election but he says others may have as well, adding, “nobody really knows.”

Trump is scheduled to meet Putin for the first time on Friday.

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3:57 p.m.

President Donald Trump has arrived in Hamburg, Germany on the eve of his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

World leaders are gathering in the city for a meeting of the Group of 20 economic powers.

Trump spent the first half of the day in Poland, delivering a speech and holding a joint press conference with Poland’s president.

He’s set to meet later Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and attend a Northeast Asia Security Dinner with South Korean President Moon Jae-in (jah-yihn) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

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2:45 p.m.

President Donald Trump is welcoming Croatia’s commitment to boosting energy security and diversification.

The White House said in a statement that the president’s meeting Thursday with Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic of Croatia reaffirmed their mutual interests in supporting “stability and security in the western Balkans.”

The White House also says that Trump “expressed support for timely completion of the Krk Island liquefied natural gas facility.”

Trump said Thursday during a major speech delivered in Warsaw that he wants to make sure Poland and its neighbors are “never again held hostage” to a single supplier of energy.

Russia is one of the largest suppliers of energy to the European Union. His comments come on the eve of his first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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2:03 p.m.

The office of Slovenia’s president says U.S. President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to visit the small central European nation that is the homeland of his wife Melania.

Borut Pahor’s office said in a statement Thursday that the Slovenian president extended the invitation on the sidelines of the Three Seas summit, a meeting of countries all bordered by the Baltic, Adriatic and Black seas.

It was not immediately clear when the visit could take place.

Slovenian officials had hoped that the first meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin would be held in Slovenia. President George W. Bush and Putin held their first face-to-face meeting in Slovenia in June 2001.

Melania Trump was born and raised in Slovenia before moving abroad in her twenties to pursue a modelling career.

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2:00 p.m.

President Donald Trump is wrapping up his major speech on Poland by declaring that “the West will never be broken” and vowed to win the battle against extremism.

Trump, speaking in Warsaw on Thursday, said “our people will thrive and our civilization will triumph.” He offered praise for his hosts’ resilience in the face of historic threats from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, declaring “let us all fight like Poles.”

Trump used the speech to make the case for the United States and its allies to embrace that spirit of nationalistic pride that helped sustain the Polish people.

He repeatedly drew contrasts with the beliefs of extremists and made the case for the necessity of his travel ban, which restricts immigration from some terror-impacted countries.

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1:55 p.m.

President Donald Trump is reaffirming his commitment to NATO’s Article 5 as he delivers a speech in Warsaw, Poland.

Trump said Thursday that the United States “has demonstrated not merely with words, but with its actions that we stand firmly” behind Article 5, “the mutual defense commitment.”

He says, “Words are easy, but actions are what matters.”

Trump was criticized during his first foreign trip for failing to explicitly affirm his commitment to the mutual defense of NATO members during a critical speech at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

The article states than an attack on one member is an attack on all members and binds the allies to come to that country’s defense. It has only been invoked once, after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

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1:52 p.m.

President Donald Trump is praising Poland for honoring its defense spending commitment to NATO saying that “the example you set is truly magnificent.”

He used the occasion of his first visit to Poland to renew his call for other NATO members to boost their defense spending.

In a major address in Warsaw Thursday, Trump said that Poland is “now among the most committed members of the NATO alliance” and says that Poland “has resumed its place as a leading nation of a Europe that is strong, whole and free.”

He’s also touting the benefits of a strong Europe, calling it “a blessing to the west and to the world.”

Trump’s first visit foreign trip was marred by a tough speech to NATO members urging them to spend more on their armed forces.

Poland is one of the five NATO members that spends at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on the military, as Trump has urged.

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1:48 p.m.

President Donald Trump is calling on Russia to stop its destabilizing activities in Ukraine.

He’s also calling on Moscow to end its support for “hostile regimes.” Trump specifically called out Syria and Iran.

Trump instead urged Russia to join the “community of responsible nations” in its fight against common enemies and the defense of civilization.

Trump’s plea to Russia comes a day before his first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, which the U.S. does not recognize. Russia also supports separatist elements operating in Ukraine.

Trump included the message to Russia in a public address during a quick visit to Poland.

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1:42 p.m.

President Donald Trump is telling a crowd in Poland that Europe no longer faces the threat of communism but that the West is now battling new “dire threats.”

Trump, in a speech Thursday in Warsaw, said that the United States and its European allies have suffered frequent acts of terror. He vowed that “we will confront them and we will win.”

The president specifically used the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” the label for extremists that he used frequently during the campaign but declined to say in front of a gathering of Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia during his first foreign trip in May.

He said that extremists groups threaten the West’s “way of life” and obliquely defended the administration’s travel ban that restricts immigration from some Muslim majority countries.

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1:38 p.m.

President Donald Trump says Poland may be the geographic heart of Europe but the Polish people are its soul.

Trump is addressing thousands of Poles from Krasinski Square, site of the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation. More than 150,000 Poles died during the struggle to overthrow oppression.

Trump is praising the spirit of the Polish people for enduring and overcoming every effort to transform, oppress and destroy them.

He’s holding up Poland as an example for other nations. He says Poland’s triumph over hardship gives nations all hope for a future in which good conquers evil and peace achieves victory over war.

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1:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump says that he is eager to expand U.S. partnerships with Poland, especially when it comes to exporting energy.

Trump said Thursday during a major speech delivered in Warsaw that he wants to make sure that the country and its neighbors are “never again held hostage” to a single supplier of energy.

Russia is one of the largest suppliers of energy to the European Union. Trump is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday.

Poland received its first shipment of American liquefied natural gas last month.

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1:25 p.m.

First Lady Melania Trump warmed up the crowd in Poland’s capital ahead of her husband’s speech, saying that all people should be allowed to “live their lives without fear.”

The first lady said Thursday that guaranteeing the “security” of the American people is the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s administration and that she hoped all around world could share in that safety.

She also touted a tour she took earlier in the day at a science center nearby in Warsaw where people came “to observe, experiment, to ask questions and seek answers” which she said should inspire people in both the United States and Poland.

Melania Trump, who is taking a prominent role in her husband’s key overseas trip, also saluted the Polish people and their “beautiful country.”

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